Johannesburg CBD

About Johannesburg CBD

The Central Business District, commonly called Johannesburg CBD, is one of the main business centres of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the most dense collection of skyscrapers in Africa, however due to white flight and urban blight, many of the buildings are unoccupied as tenants have left for more secure locations in the Northern Suburbs, in particular Sandton and Rosebank. There are significant movements to revive the area.HistoryThe area that is currently the Central Business District has ...

The Central Business District, commonly called Johannesburg CBD, is one of the main business centres of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the most dense collection of skyscrapers in Africa, however due to white flight and urban blight, many of the buildings are unoccupied as tenants have left for more secure locations in the Northern Suburbs, in particular Sandton and Rosebank. There are significant movements to revive the area.HistoryThe area that is currently the Central Business District has been the central area of Johannesburg nearly since its inception. Its central location in the city as well as careful planning led to it to be chosen as the best location for residential and commercial development, especially during the economically prosperous 1960s and 1970s. Many large commercial products were completed in this period, such as the Carlton Centre, which is still the tallest building in Africa.Under apartheid, the Central Business District was classified as a whites-only area, meaning that black people were allowed to work and shop there but could not live there. Application of the Group Areas Act became very lax in the 1980s, among other things because courts were not able to handle all the cases, and when the Act was abolished even more disadvantaged black people moved into the City Centre, often taking over whole buildings by overfilling them with people that the previous middle class white tenants found unacceptable neighbours.